THE SIGNIFICANCE (OR INSIGNIFICANCE) OF BLACKNESS IN MYTHOLOGICAL NAMES
Richard Buxton
The aim of this paper is to examine certain mythological names involving the component melas. In order to set this enquiry into context, however, I shall first look at the general opposition between melas and leukos in Greek thought. In his still useful dissertation Die Bedeutung der weissen und der schwarzen Farbe in Kult und Brauch der Griechen und Römer, Gerhard Radke conveys a message which is basically very straightforward: in rela- tion to the gods and their worship, black is negative, white positive.1 Melas is associated with the Underworld,2 with Ate,3 with death,4 with mourning.5 In keeping with this nexus of funereal associations, animals described as melas are sacrificed to powers of the Underworld and to the dead: thus at Odyssey .– Odysseus promises to dedicate an 5ϊν παμμλανα to Teiresias if he gets back safe to Ithaca, while in Colophon, according to Pausanias (..), they sacrifice a black bitch to Enodia, andmoreovertheydosoatnight.6 Leukos, by contrast, is associated not just with divinities of light such as Helios and Day—in Aeschylus’ Persians () the glorious day of the victory at Salamis is a λευκ- πωλς μρα—but with divinities in general, especially when they are conceived of as ‘favourable’: the Dioscuri, those twin saviours, ride on
1 G. Radke, Die Bedeutung der weissen und der schwarzen Farbe in Kult und Brauch der Griechen und Römer (diss. Berlin; Jena: Neuenhahn, ). P.Vidal-Naquet, “Le chasseur noir et l’origine de l’éphébie athénienne”, Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations (): –, revised in Le chasseur noir: formes de pensée et formes de société dans le monde grec (Paris: Maspero, ), – () called this a ‘catalogue consciencieux’. Elsewhere too I cite from the version. 2 Erebos is μελαμ ας at Euripides, Hel. . 3 Aeschylus, Ag. . 4 Euripides, Alc. –. 5 Thetis’ veil, as she mourned for Achilles, was κυ!νεν, τ' δ’ T τι μελ!ντερν Oπλετ Oσς (Homer, Il. .). Before the destruction of Corinth by the Romans, Corinthian boys used to cut their hair short and wear black in memory of the killing of Medea’s children (Pausanias ..). 6 Similarly, Orestes offers a black sheep to his dead father at Euripides, El. –. richard buxton white horses.7 Again there is a correspondence in the realm of sacrificial ritual: white animals were sacrificed to several of the major Olympian deities, including Aphrodite, Apollo, Hera, Poseidon, and Zeus.8 More- over, white clothing may indicate the proper ritual condition in which mortals should approach a god: Diogenes Laertius reports that to meet Pythagoras’ prescription for ritual purity στλU λευκ/ and στρ ματα λευκ! were the appropriate costume.9 In all these various data from the world of ritual practice we seem to find ample confirmation of the melas-as-negative/leukos-as-positive polarity which is also evidenced in myth—in, for example, the black sail of forgetful Theseus, which caused his father’s suicide;10 or in Apollo’s changing of the colour of the crow from white to black, to punish it for bringing the message about Coro- nis’ infidelity.11 Melas negative, leukos positive.Itseems,atfirstsight,so simple. Yet as soon as we look more carefully at the evidence from cult, it is not hard to find inversions of our polarity. The colour of death is not always black. In a fragment from Aristophanes’ Daitales,awhite dog is offered to Hecate, notwithstanding the goddess’s connections with the Underworld.12 In the Iliad (.) the dead Patroclus is covered with a white shroud. Not only Patroclus: the Messenians, according to Pausanias (..–), dressed their great men in white cloaks before burial, while Artemidorus (.) could interpret a dream of wearing white as a prognostic of death, since ‘the dead are carried off in white clothes’.13 Nor is it only divinities predominantly linked with death and night who are linked with black: Pausanias’ description of Arcadia includes accounts of Demeter Melaina at Phigalia (..) and Aphrodite Melainis at Mantinea (..). Again, in relation to sacrificial offerings, Poseidon
7 Pindar, P. .. 8 A few examples. Aphrodite: Lucian, DMeretr. .. Apollo: Theocritus, Ep. .. Hera: LSAM .. Poseidon: Appian, Mith. ; LSCG .–; Pindar, O. .. Zeus: LSCG .–; Demosthenes .. See Radke, Bedeutung, –. 9 Diogenes Laertius .; cf. Aeschines, Ctes. , on the wearing of λευκUν (σAτα by a person sacrificing. 10 Apollodorus, Epit. .. Black is also the colour of the sail of Charon’s boat: Aeschy- lus, Sept. . 11 Scholion on Pindar, P. .b; see T. Gantz, Early Greek Myth (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, ), . 12 Kassel-Austin, PCG Aristophanes fr. . 13 One may note also that both white and black are associated with ghosts: see J. Winkler, “Lollianos and the Desperadoes”, Journal of Hellenic Studies (): – (–).